The present invention relates to computer systems and software and more particularly to a method and system to layout topology objects, particularly in a primitive environment.
Typically, robust personal computer (PC) applications and the like that are capable of displaying topological layouts, network graphs or similar representations may offer as a core function the ability to “click-on” and “drag” or move topological objects as a means to reposition objects and layout the network graph or representation. Such robust PC applications may also provide the functionality to bend links or “lasso” and drag multiple objects to re-layout large areas of topology. However, in other less robust or primitive applications or device types, such as Web/Markup Applications or the like, the ability to perform complex interactions, such as dragging, selecting, repositioning and similar operations, may not be available. An additional challenge is that these primitive environments may run in a stateless environment. In a stateless environment, the graphical display is independent of the topology data model. Within a markup language, a topology map is simply a singular image and is not made up of multiple different objects (links, nodes, etc.) that can be easily recognized, selected or manipulated by the client. Because the topology object itself cannot be directly distinguished by the computer pointing device in such primitive or stateless environments, the ability to directly influence, select, manipulate or perform other operations is not possible.